Join Us in Accelerating the Skills First Movement
The Center for a Skills First Future helps employers put skills at the center of hiring and advancement—unlocking talent, fueling growth, and creating opportunity. We provide the tools, guidance, and shared language to make skills-first practices the standard.
Skills Action Planner
Skills Action Planner
Evaluate your organization’s progress in adopting a skills-first approach. Our interactive tool helps you identify strengths, gaps, and actionable steps to implement a skills-based approach effectively.
Resource Library
Resource Library
Access research, tools, and employer examples to implement and sustain skills-first talent strategies across the employee lifecycle.
Skills First Credential
Skills First Credential
Demonstrate expertise in skills-based workforce strategies. Equip yourself with the tools to drive impact across hiring, development, and retention.
Vendor Database
Vendor Database
Find vetted solutions and community support for skills-first implementations—from sourcing and assessment to upskilling and mobility.
Hear from Taylor Dunne, San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation
Taylor Dunne of the San Diego Regional EDC shares how skills-first hiring gains real traction—by starting from within. In this spotlight, she emphasizes the power of aligning HR and technical teams, identifying internal champions, and rethinking how organizations recognize and value skills beyond traditional proxies.
Hear From Rose Sikder, OKTA
Rose Sikder, of OKTA explains how a skills-first approach unlocks potential in today’s workforce. In this inspiring message, she shares how leading with skills—not assumptions—helps businesses find untapped talent, support upward mobility, and future-proof their teams.
Hear from Steven Flenory, WB Games
Steven Flenory of WB Games shares why skills-first hiring isn’t just the future—it’s the now. In this short spotlight, he highlights how prioritizing skills over outdated proxies helps employers tap into overlooked talent, improve retention, and build stronger teams.
Hear from Josh Tarr of Workday
Josh Tarr of Workday shares how their internal gig program sparked a skills-first transformation. By focusing on real skills over résumés, Workday saw faster hiring, better candidate experiences, and stronger acceptance rates. His advice? Start small, use your data, and make skills a company-wide priority—not just an HR project.
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19x
Removing degree requirements unlocks 19x more candidates (JFF, 2023)
30%
Skills-first hiring reduces cost-per-hire by 30% (SHRM, 2023)
42%
Companies adopting skills- first decrease turnover by 42% (McKinsey, 2023)
Featured Resource
Refers to a branded framework developed by the nonprofit America Succeeds, designed to cultivate and assess "durable skills"—also known as soft skills—for learners and workforce professionals. Pathsmith™ organizes 100 leading skills into 10 core competencies, each with sub-skills, often visualized via the “Durable Skills Wheel.” Examples of core competencies are critical thinking, adaptability, leadership, and communication—viewed as essential for economic mobility in a dynamic world.
There is a free Starter Edition of the Framework that offers definitions of approximately 82 durable skills and provides summary rubrics across performance domains. A paid/licensed Full Framework version contains detailed definitions for each skill at four performance levels—emerging, developing, applying, and exceeding—though access requires contacting the organization and may involve licensing or tailored pricing
The name, Pathsmith, was selected to evokes the image of a "blacksmith shaping tools to withstand the test of time." In that sense, Pathsmith™ forges resilient, human-centric skills that endure even as job roles and technologies change
See: Pathsmith™ (Durable Skills Advantage Framework) - America Succeeds | Learn & Work Ecosystem Library
Founding Investors
Founding Partners
